RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — One of the six remaining defendants awaiting trial in the fatal attack on an Ecuadorean immigrant pleaded guilty Wednesday to gang assault as a hate crime.

Jose Pacheco also agreed to testify against other defendants accused in the attack on dry cleaning worker Marcelo Lucero, who was stabbed in the chest on Nov. 8, 2008, in Patchogue on Long Island.

Pacheco also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to three counts of attempted assault as a hate crime. He faces 5 to 25 years behind bars on gang assault, the top count.

The year since the Lucero slaying has put a national spotlight on the area’s race relations. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating hate crimes and police response to them.

In November, another defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy and hate crime charges and agreed to testify against the others.

Nicholas Hausch also admitted participating in other attacks on Hispanics, confessing that he and accomplices frequently used racial epithets when confronting victims. In one attack, Hausch said, they shot a BB gun at a Hispanic man.

Pacheco also admitted taking part in other attacks on Hispanics.

Lucero, 37, came to the United States when he was 21. He was walking with a friend shortly before midnight near the Patchogue train station when they were confronted by a mob of teens. His friend fled, but Lucero was surrounded, prosecutors say.

He tried to fight back, flailing at the assailants with his belt. At some point, an 18-year-old plunged a knife into Lucero’s chest before running away, prosecutors said.

Suffolk County has seen thousands of Hispanics settle there in recent years. U.S. Census figures show the number of Hispanics has nearly doubled, from 7.1 percent of the population in 1990 to 13.7 percent in 2008.

A national civil rights group released a study in September that found “a pervasive climate of fear in the Latino community” in Suffolk County.

Just weeks after presiding at Lucero’s funeral, a preacher invited Hispanic crime victims to share their experiences. Dozens came forward.

Many were unable to identify their attackers, but prosecutors gleaned enough evidence to file charges in eight other attacks against the teens accused in the Lucero killing.

Many victims cited in the study said they had been reluctant to contact police, fearing they’d be asked about their immigration status. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer has said officers don’t ask victims whether they’re illegal immigrants. He assigned a Hispanic officer to command a local precinct after the killing.

The Southern Poverty Law Center report titled “Climate of Fear; Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County,” catalogued a litany of anti-immigrant attacks dating back a decade.

Two men are serving long prison terms for attempted murder after luring two Mexican laborers to a warehouse in 2000 with the promise of work, only to pummel them with shovels.

Last August, three young men were charged with hate crimes in the robbery and beating of an Ecuadorean man near the spot where Lucero was killed. Police said one man punched 22-year-old day laborer Milton Balbuca in the face while the others kicked and punched him, yelling anti-Mexican slurs.